1980s
Meetings, Orange Tree Theatre review - three-hander that chews on big issuesThursday, 19 October 2023
Mustapha Matura’s 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be set in the present day. What makes it topical is the central issue it chews on: is the modern world all it’s cracked up to be,... Read more... |
Madonna, Celebration Tour, O2 review - spectacular, ambitious and occasionally bemusingTuesday, 17 October 2023
Exactly 40 years since Madonna’s first UK hit, “Holiday”, was skittering about the Top Five, she launches her global Celebration Tour at the O2.It is spectacle on the very grandest scale. In the latter half, following a video montage of tabloid... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Ibrahim Hesnawi - The Father of Libyan ReggaeSunday, 15 October 2023
Initially, it doesn’t sound so unusual. The collection’s first song is titled “Never Understand.” Sung in English, it’s poppy reggae with a light feel, twinkling keyboard lines and a lengthy, rock-oriented guitar solo. The singer appears to be a fan... Read more... |
Dead Dad Dog, Finborough Theatre review - Scottish two-hander plays differently 35 years on, but still entertainsSaturday, 14 October 2023
I know, I was there. Well, not in Edinburgh in 1985, but in Liverpool in 1981, and the pull of London and the push from home, was just as strong for me back then as it is for Eck in John McKay’s comedy Dead Dad Dog. Back in London for the... Read more... |
Celia Dale: Sheep's Clothing review - unsettling, mundane, and right on-trendTuesday, 19 September 2023
Celia Dale published 13 novels between 1944 and her death in 2011. A majority of her these are often categorised – albeit loosely – as crime fiction, or else labeled as a kind of suburban horror.Her astonishing skill, however, lay in the balance... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: David Westlake - D87Sunday, 10 September 2023
Becoming reacquainted with what was originally titled Westlake in 1987 is a pleasure. Yes, at his own measured pace, David Westlake has issued great albums since then and his Eighties and Nineties band The Servants have been the subject of various... Read more... |
Album: Alice Cooper - RoadThursday, 24 August 2023
Let’s face it, well over 50 years into Alice Cooper’s career, you probably already know whether his umpteen-billionth album is for you. Over the last decade, he’s revitalised things by taking a meta look at himself, but, whether harking back to his... Read more... |
La Cage Aux Folles, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - 40 years on, the drag show still entertains and educatesWednesday, 16 August 2023
Forty years ago, the world was very different for gay men. AIDS was devastating their communities, especially in the big cities where hard-won enclaves of acceptance were being hollowed out, one sunken-eyed friend after another. Media screamed “Gay... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Klar!80 - celebrating Düsseldorf’s early Eighties undergroundSunday, 06 August 2023
Düsseldorf’s most famous band is Kraftwerk. Neu!, La Düsseldorf, and, a little later, D.A.F also helped mark-out the west German city as the home of musical boundary pushers – folks doing their own thing. Fellow Düsseldorf residents Die Toten Hosen... Read more... |
Album: Girlschool - WTFortyfive?Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Despite contemporary cultural zeitgeist fair zingin’ with reappreciation of under-celebrated female artists of previous eras, Girlschool haven’t been much shouted about.This is partly because they’re a metal band. The music media ignores most metal... Read more... |
Album: Dexys - The Feminine DivineFriday, 28 July 2023
In 2012 Dexys returned with their fourth album, and first in 27 years, One Day I’m Going to Soar. It was a concept piece, original and funny, chewing over the volatility of love, containing wonderful set-pieces, most especially a trio of songs at... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Autonomy - The Productions of Martin RushentSunday, 23 July 2023
Two producers named Martin worked with Buzzcocks and Joy Division. Martin Hannett was in the studio for Buzzcocks’ debut release, the Spiral Scratch EP, issued in January 1977, and also for the bulk of the tracks spread across their last three... Read more... |
